Saturday, January 10, 2009

The Ice Man Cometh

DAY ONE of the October 1953 issue of Mysterious Adventures #16, in its entirety. I think I’ll skip the introductions for the next four posts and just let these stories speak for themselves, or maybe for today I’ll let the final panel of this one speak for them all. Like. Whoa.

17 comments:

Too crazy. Nice attempt at adding some er...freshness on a tired theme. Lillian is one of the most deserving villains i've ever seen in a pre-code comic, even bullying the guy she cheats with, weird how Henry is the most likeable character, if he'd waited for Walter to try and kill him and not chopped him up elaborately, he could have claimed self defense. But where's the fun in that? :) . I also got a laugh out of the one-pager, haha. Maybe the main story wouldn't have ended so badly if the vampire had bought some ice from Henry for his "Tall cool drink".

VERY COOL ENDING, LITERALLY!! WHAT THE HELL IS IN THAT ONE BLOCK OF ICE THOUGH??? FIRST CUBE MIDDLE ROW. I THINK THESE STORIES AND THE FAMILIAR PLOTLINES ARE WHAT MAKES THEM SO ENDEARING, WE GET WHAT WE EXPECT WITH THE TWIST. EC DID IT ALL THE TIME TOO BUT NO ONE COMPLAINS........ THESE PROBABLY WEREN'T SAME OLD STORIES BACK IN THE DAY.

I didn't want to play spoiler, but I think enough time has passed: fun vampire story. I never even knew they sweated, much less in direct sunlight. At last, a hard-working guy just like you and me except for the whole bloodlust thing. Er. If you have a whole bloodlust thing, keep it to yourself like him, OK?

I should've made today a contest and had you guys find the connecting theme bewteen both tales. Half of you would have said "Same old story" while others would have got the ice cube and warm drink thing.

What a study in contrasts. Susie is such a nice, devoted wife to her vampire hubby, having a nice warm wino for him to drink when he gets home. I tell ya, that's the perfect job for a vampire too--mortician. He doesn't need any of that fancy equipment to drain the blood from the dearly departed--he makes a meal of it. Really saves on grocery costs too.Then there's Lillian. A real gold digger, but not a very adept one. To be a successful gold digger, one really needs to set one's sights higher than the owner of the ice block company and his employees.

These stories also make me think of my family history. My father can remember the ice truck bringing blocks of ice in the days before the family got an electric refrigerator. But my grandmother wasn't married to the owner of the ice company and she didn't have an affair with any of the employees. Also, my great uncle was a mortician, but he wasn't a vampire. And the stereotype of the morose mortician didn't fit him at all. He was a very jolly, upbeat person. It was a pity that he died at a rather young age (64) from prostate cancer.

Given that "The Ice Man Cometh!" establishes that it's set in 1926, it'd've been nice if the artist had shown themselves capable of drawing people in vintage fashions. Wouldn't you have liked to see a nice sneaky flapper girl?

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